Exposure of big brightness range subjects

[mike_young1]

I am still getting used to my xti. Exposure is still a problem under certain

lighting conditions. I am trying to take a pictue of a shiny dark green hedge

with a bright blue sky with white puffy clouds. I am using a canon 50 1.4.

It seems that no matter what combination of shutter/apature I use either the

sky blows out and I get a nice green hedge or I get a nice blue and white sky

and a very dark green hedge. I have this problem regardless of the positon of

the sun. I am doing this at iso 200 and manual. Am I missing something or is

this just the way it is.

tia

mike

[brianchapman]

Mike,

 

That's pretty much the way it is with a single exposure. You have to compromise based on what you want from the shot. If you're shooting RAW you may be able to recover some of the sky or lighten the hedge in the raw converter but that has limits as well.

 

If you're willing to do some photoshop work (or other image editor) and use a tripod you can expose two images, one for the shadows, one for the highlights, and combine them so that you have the desired exposure in both areas.

 

Here's a good link to get started with:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml

 

Brian

[steve torelli]

Mike,

 

Partial metering mode, meter off the green hedge, set exposure compensation to - a couple of stops. Good luck.

[uriah]

Plus you could expose for the sky and use flash on the hedge.

[steve torelli]

RAW of course. Just noticed you said you're shooting M mode. Same thing, meter off the hedge, adjust your shutter speed or aperture to under-expose a couple of stops.

[beauh44]

Hi Mike, Have you tried a polarizer? It'll knock 2 stops of light off, cut down on most glare and might work. Good luck!

[mike_young1]

Brian,

Your link was right on. The examples given in it duplicate exactly my situation.

[gamitch]

Gradual ND filters

[mars c]

If you have problems with exposure, Why not just adjust the exposure compensation in your camera? Whats the use of the exp. comp. in your camera? Its very easy thing to adjust.

 

YOu can put the exp. comp. at +.7 to have a brighter pictures, just avoid clipping the highlights by turning it back to 0 if the scene has alot of contrast.

[mike_young1]

mars,

I obviously can adjust anything on the camera. My post indicated that there does not seem to be any setting that captures both the bright blue of the sky and the dark green leaves on the hedges.

[mattbutterfield]

Have you ever tried using photoshop's merge to HDR? If you have CS2, you should try it out.

 

http://www.naturescapes.net/072006/rh0706_1.htm

 

that's a pretty long article (17 pages) but it is really interesting and worth a read.

[mawz]

The above posts have pretty much covered it, you've got a scene with more dynamic range than the camera can handle.

 

There's 3 solutions.

 

1. Grad ND filters, these darken the sky. They work well if the break between foreground and sky is relatively even. Also they're the most expensive solution ,as you'll need a filter holder as well (screw-in grads are useless as they don't allow you to control where the grad line is) and the grads are really only useful for this sort of work, unlike the more expensive but more useful flash.

 

2. Fill flash. Lights up the darker foreground. May look unnatural, and requires an external flash unit, preferably off-camera, for best results. More expensive than grads but the flash and off-camera control (cord or wireless with ST-E2) are so useful that you'll be using the gear quite often.

 

3. HDR rendering. Take 2-3 shots, exposing for each part of the scene, as well as a middle exposure, then combine in PS or Photomatix. May look quite unreal if care isn't taken, but can turn in some incredible results.

[andrew robertson]

You are running into dynamic range difficulties. I usually shoot for somewhere in the

middle and tweak the contrast down in RAW after the exposure, if I have to get it in one

frame.

 

You would have the same results with slide film. I would recommend reading Ansel

Adams' series, 'The Camera', 'The Negative', and 'The Print', which will teach you how to

handle extended dynamic range, or at least how to see it in the world before you trip the

shutter. Sounds like you could use some introductory knowledge regarding light. These

books are firmly rooted in the film world, but 95% of the concepts taught apply to both

film and digital.

[gdanmitchell]

More dynamic range in the scene that the camera can deal with - a fairly typical problem.

 

One other thing that can help you a bit is shooting RAW. In many cases, if you expose so

that you don't blow out the highlights the shadows will be too dark. With a RAW file you

can often find some detail in those shadows and regain some of the dynamic range. This is

not a perfect solution, but sometimes it is good enough.

 

I frequently use Adam's method 3 above, though I don't actually use the HDR feature in PS.

I do take two (or more) exposures with the camera on the tripod, using a remote release

and MLU. I use a range of exposures with some optimized for the bright portions of the

scene and others for the dark areas.

 

I do separate RAW conversions and bring at least two of the images into layers in PS. Then

I create a mask and (most often) paint out bits of the upper layer to allow parts of the

lower to show through.

 

This is sort of a software ND grad. Real ND grads have the advantage of requiring only one

exposure. This method has some advantage though as well. For example, I can customize

the division between the dark and light areas, and I can even vary the percentage of each

image.

[mike_young1]

I have been shooting in raw and what I have found is that if I take the shot so that the sky is still blue and the bushes are a very dark green I can edit the image to brighten up the hedge without losing the sky. It has been a while since I was into 35mm film but I do not remember having this type of problem with my minolta 101.

Thx to everyone for the fantastic resonse to my question.

mike

[William Michael]

Graduated ND Filter gets a second vote: Simple & elegant solution.

 

WW

[mars c]

One solution if I were in your situation is to use a tripod and the shoot with bracketing and merge in PS.

 

And another , If I dont have a tripod or a software to merge the bracketed images, is to shoot RAW and underexpose between 1 and/or 2 stops, then push the image later on raw conversion. The result is much better than exposing correctly.

 

Sorry Mike for my first post, peace, I just mentioned it just in case you forgot what they're for.

[jim_larson1]

The multiple exposure solution is the best.

 

For those -like me- that are too lazy to bring a tripod everywhere, use the SAME exposure, but just process it twice (once for the highlights, once for the shadows), then apply the layering technique.

[erik_p1]

Shoot raw at average exposure. Copy the picture 2 times. In Canon DPP Set exposure compensation for one copy at - 2 stops, set the other copy to + 2 stops. Import into Photomatix. Create HDR. This works in Photomatix but doesn't in Photoshop.

 

It is a good too for rescuing shots in this situation.<div></div>